Sharon's Language Arts Class
In Sharon's Language Arts class, we focused on two types of essays and the different purposes for writing them. Our essays were the Personal Narrative and the Expository.
For the Narrative essay, we chose an event in our lives that changed or shaped our values and/or beliefs and then revealed this to Sharon through personal narration. The hardest part about this essay was that we had to show, rather than tell everything about that event. We needed to show it so the readers could picture themselves in it and could feel whatever was happening. Our purpose in the personal narrative was to "make a promise" to the reader in the beginning, a promise that indicated a certain tone, feeling, or emotion. We were to stick to the promise throughout the essay and conclude in a way that left the reader feeling as though the promise was kept. We were required to revise the essay in three different drafts. We were amazed at the difference between our first drafts and our last.
The second essay was the Expository essay. The topic for this essay was Jacob Lawrence. We went to the Henry Art Galley at the University of Washington to see a Jacob Lawrence exhibit. For the Expository essay we wrote about one of the the two themes in the exhibit, "Life Stories" or "People in Motion" and related it to one particular painting or series of paintings and what it meant to us. The purpose of this essay was to instruct or to inform the reader about an issue or topic that the student noticed in a painting or series of paintings. We were to be direct and formal, using a thesis, support for the thesis, and a conclusion. Again, we learned that one draft is not enough to produce an excellent essay and that revision is absolutely necessary.
We also worked on Critical reading and college-level methods of reading. This will help us with our college assignments. Thank you Sharon.